Suspected Mastermind Of Paris Attacks Named

http://adf.ly/1RqLSZThe suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks has been named by French officials as Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud. The 27-year-old is thought to be from the suburb of Molenbeek in Brussels, which was home to other members of the militant Islamist cell that carried out Friday's massacre. He is believed to currently be in Syria. It has been reported that Abaaoud had links to thwarted attacks on a Paris-bound high-speed train when two US soldiers and a civilian overpowered a heavily-armed gunman - and a separate attack on a church. Abdelhamid Abaaoud paris terror attack mastermind & brother Abbaoud and his younger brother Younes, a child-fighter in Syria He also had links to two suspects killed in a counter-terrorism raid in Verviers, Belgium, in January. Abaaoud, who also uses the name Abu Omar al Baljiki, is of Moroccan origin. Salah Abdeslam Video: Hunt Still On For Key Suspect In February of this year, Islamic State's online magazine, Dabiq, carried an interview with an Islamist bearing that name and boasting of having travelled through Europe unnoticed by security forces to organise attacks and procure weapons. Abaaoud was also named in various media last year as the elder brother of 13-year-old Younes Abaaoud, who left Belgium to become a child-fighter in Syria. It is thought Abaaoud, who was once a student at one of Brussels' most prestigious high schools, Saint Pierre d'Uccle, encouraged his sibling to join him in the war-ravaged country. Syrian airstrikes Video: France Jets Strike Back At IS "All my life, I have seen the blood of Muslims flow," he said in a video made public last year. :: Seven Paris Terrorists: What We Know "I pray that Allah will break the backs of those who oppose him, his soldiers and his admirers, and that he will exterminate them." Tributes Around The World For Paris Attack Victims NHL: Toronto Maple Leafs at New York Rangers Sydney Continues To Remember Victims Of Paris Terror Attacks La Moneda government house is illuminated with the blue, white and red colours of the French flag in Santiago  Tributes Around The World For Paris Attack Victims In February this year, he was quoted by Dabiq as saying he had secretly returned to Belgium to lead a terror cell and then fled to Syria following the raid in Verviers. A photo of him was broadcast by the media at the time of the police raid. Abaaoud boasted he was stopped by an officer who let him go after seeing no resemblance between himself and the man in the photograph. A member of the hacker group Anonymous reads a message to Islamic State after the terrorist attacks in Paris Video: Anonymous Takes On Islamic State Independent journalists working on the Turkish-Syrian border last year obtained photographs and a video of him with his friends loading a truck with dead bodies. One of the journalists told the Associated Press he could be seen giving orders: "You can see a combatant who's ready to climb the ranks."